How Ancient Egypt Became Common Knowledge to Britons, 1870-1922

“The Glamour of Egypt Possesses Us”: How Ancient Egypt Became Common Knowledge to Britons, 1870-1922 Holly Polish A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts in History Professor Katharine Norris, Faculty Director American University May 2009 Polish 1 Fun , a comedy magazine, reported on the 1896 “discovery” of an important papyrus, found in Egypt. 1 The papyrus depicts ancient Egyptians playing golf and wearing kilts and tams. It is a parody of paintings with which many are familiar, those in which figures are drawn alongside hieroglyphs relating a story. The included caption reports that the papyrus was examined by “experts on Egyptian matters” who “have all agreed that it deals, if not with golf itself, at least with a game of remarkable similarity.” 2 The writer continues and suggests that Scotland may want to reconsider its claim to the pastime. In that brief caption, the writer raises the point that the public relies on the work of “the Professor” and “experts on Egyptian matters” to decipher the ancient culture, and, furthermore, to decipher the origins of their own heritage. The satirist’s work depends on the British public’s familiarity with ancient Egyptian art and expression to be able to understand the joke. The parody in Fun was conceived in the context of an exciting period for study of Egypt, the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While travelers, scholars, and archaeologists developed precise methodology and were able to travel more easily, the study of Egypt, took on the title Egyptology and, like many disciplines, became formalized. 3 Throughout the period, exploration and archaeology were streamlined, generating discoveries that led to greater knowledge and spurred further exploration. Little by little, ancient Egypt, a civilization on par with ancient Greece and Rome was unearthed. Travelers and scholars disseminated their uncovered knowledge in publications and institutions, giving the public access to a wealth of new and exciting information. Furthermore, Egypt, for people in the middle and upper classes, was a popular travel destination. As a result, fascination with ancient Egypt was lively both 1 See Appendix A for a print. “More Discoveries in Egypt,” Fun 64 (October 1896), p. 130. 2 “More Discoveries in Egypt,” Fun 64 (October 1896), p. 130. 3 John D. Wortham, The Genesis of British Egyptology: 1549-1906 (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1971). Polish 2 inside and outside of academia. In addition to scholarship and travel inciting fascination with Egypt, items from Egypt garnered attention in exhibitions and at the British Museum, and the press covered major discoveries made in excavations. 4 Thus, both experts, those in the field of Egyptology, and amateurs, those without scholarly credentials, could participate in the study and discussion of ancient Egypt. My paper will demonstrate that knowledge about Egypt became an important facet of common knowledge to Britons in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and that Britons consumed it as a product of the empire. I will provide evidence indicating that Britons placed importance on learning about ancient Egypt, interacting with their own imperial possessions, and discovering origins. Britons consumed what their colonies produced and Egypt was a producer of cotton and tobacco; other colonies, however, also produced those material goods. 5 I argue that Egyptological discoveries and knowledge, which developed as a result of occupation of Egypt, were the consumable products from Egypt with the greatest meaning to Britons. Joanna de Groot, in her 2006 chapter in At Home with the Empire , asserts that, in the nineteenth century, “‘the Empire’ itself became a consumable product.” 6 I seek to show that consumption of Egypt was spurred by publications, and discussion of those publications, which emitted the message that knowing about Egypt was essential for Britons who took interest in the world. To make my argument, I will use travelogues, travel guidebooks, Egyptology scholarship, news, and reviews to determine to what Britons were exposed and how they consumed it. Reviews are a key source because they contain evidence indicating the market for 4 See Stephanie Moser, Wondrous Curiosities: Ancient Egypt at the British Museum (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006). 5 Joanna de Groot, "Metropolitan desires and colonial connections," in At Home with the Empire , ed. Catherine Hall and Sonya O. Rose (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 172-3. 6 Ibid., 176. Polish 3 a work, be it a book or a lecture. Other sources show the types of pieces that Britons could read and what publishers chose to market to the public. The period chosen for this study spans from 1870 to 1922, representing a time during which the public showed heightened interest in Egypt and during which several prominent Egyptologists made their mark. The study, which focuses on the mass public, begins while Egyptology was in its nascent stage and Britain was incorporating Egypt into its dominion. Britain was financially involved in the governance of Egypt in the 1870s and established formal authority over Egypt in 1882. 7 The colonial relationship is important in how it affected those interested in ancient Egypt because the relationship spawned a relaxation of restrictions on excavating. As the prominent archaeologist, W. M. Flinders Petrie noted in his article “Archaeology in Egypt,” While many seats of ancient civilization are almost closed to research by the paralyzing power of Turkey, the case is different under the government of the Khedive. Although exploration in Egypt was practically forbidden to outsiders under the influence of Mariette 8…the increase of English control in the country have loosened the former restrictions almost as far as reason will permit. 9 British control meant that British interests, be they intellectual or scholarly, took precedence. Of course there is no clean-cut stopping point for interest in Egypt, but this study closes at 1922. For example, James Stevens Curl’s study Egyptomania traces “Egyptianisms,” a term for European ideas and objects inspired by Egypt, from the Roman Empire to the 1990s. 10 1922 is the endpoint because it marks the year when Egypt gained independence from the British, the same year as the discovery of Tutankhamen’s tomb. 7 The British bought the Khedive’s 44% share in the Suez Canal to solve Egypt’s public debt crisis. Peter Mansfield, The British in Egypt (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1971), 8-9. 8 Auguste Mariette was a French archaeologist who was head of the Egyptian Antiquities Service for the Egyptian government and was pivotal in establishing the Egyptian Museum. Brian Fagan, The Rape of the Nile: Tomb Robbers, Tourists, and Archaeologists in Egypt (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2004), 181-6. 9 W. M. Flinders Petrie, “Archaeology in Egypt,” Archaeological Review 1, no. 6 (August 1888): 405. 10 James Stevens Curl, Eygptomania The Egyptian Revival: A Recurring Theme in the History of Taste (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994). Polish 4 The public, for the purposes of this paper, will comprise the reading public of the middle and upper classes. The amateurs, in this paper, are part of that reading public. The general reading public was a growing body during the nineteenth century as literacy expanded. According to scholar Richard Altick, in 1871, 93.6% of males and 73.2% of females were literate; by 1900, those figures rose to 97.2% and 96.8%, respectively. 11 Britons, even those in the slums or backcountry, were able to read, but that does not mean that they had access to materials. Those in the working class could not afford to keep up with new books, and periodicals and libraries were of little help. 12 According to Altick, “the great body of middle- class buyers”, though, was able to read books, daily newspapers, and periodicals. 13 More specifically, de Groot points out, “readership for narratives of imperial travel, conquest, adventure, and settlement…spread to wider middle-class audiences during the nineteenth century.” 14 Thus, middle and upper class readers were able to keep abreast of all of the latest developments relating to Egypt and Egyptology from the comfort of the metropole, as armchair scholars. The existing historiography on this topic focuses on Europeans’ direct interactions with Egypt and analyses of the resulting works about Egypt. Timothy Mitchell’s 1988 study, Colonising Egypt , analyzes the process by which Egypt came increasingly under European control in the course of the nineteenth century. Mitchell analyzes how Europeans, primarily French and British, reacted to Egypt and how Egyptians reacted to their experiences with Europe. For Europeans, Mitchell explains, “The Orient was something one only ever rediscovered. To be grasped representationally, as the picture of something, it was inevitably to 11 Richard D. Altick, The English Common Reader: A Social History of the Mass Reading Public 1800- 1900 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963), 171. 12 Ibid., 259. 13 Ibid., 355. 14 Joanna de Groot, "Metropolitan desires and colonial connections," 176. Polish 5 be grasped as the reoccurrence of a picture one had seen before.” 15 He continues, “to describe the Orient, which refused to provide a point of view and to present itself, became more and more a process of redescribing these representations.” 16 With that, Mitchell makes the point that Europeans only learned about Egypt from other Europeans. Europeans were familiar with Egypt by the mid-nineteenth century through travelogues, exhibitions, and books. At a time when traveling was difficult and time-consuming, many European relied on imagining Egypt from the comfort of the armchair or among the crowds at the exhibition. Mitchell argues that Victorian Europeans saw the world through representations and that confusion resulted when confronted with the real thing. Europeans were most likely to experience the Other in an exhibition hall, where they could consume the Other in the comfort of the metropole.

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